Honorary University Fellows
Dr Ronald Leslie Zimmern is Chairman of the Foundation for Genomics and Population Health, the successor to the Public Health Genetics Unit which he established in 1997 and which he directed until 2010. He graduated in 1971 following his medical training at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Middlesex Hospital, London. After specialising in neurology, he obtained a law degree and entered public health medicine in 1983. He was Director of Public Health for the Cambridge and Huntingdon Health Authority from 1991-1998. Dr Zimmern is known internationally as a founder of the field of public health genomics. He has an Honorary Professorship in Public Health at HKU and is a Fellow of Hughes Hall in Cambridge.
As the grandson of Sir Robert Kotewall, who was a member of the Court and Council of HKU and conferred an honorary doctorate by the University in 1926, and the son of Mrs Doris Zimmern, Dr Zimmern continues a familial legacy of community service and philanthropy.
Through the Doris Zimmern Charitable Foundation, which was founded in 1992 by his mother to serve the people of Hong Kong, Dr Zimmern established the Sir Robert Kotewall Professorship in Public Health in 2007 and the Doris Zimmern Professorship in Community Child Health in 2009. These two Endowed Professorships would invigorate these relatively neglected areas in public health, by increasing public awareness and support for improving public health services.
Citation delivered by Professor Yu Lung LAU, Acting Dean of Medicine
Dr Ronald Leslie Zimmern is Chairman of the Foundation for Genomics and Population Health, the successor to the Public Health Genetics Unit which he established in Cambridge in June 1997 and which he directed until 2010.
He graduated in 1971 following his medical training at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Middlesex Hospital, London. After specialising in neurology he obtained a law degree and entered public health medicine in 1983.
As the grandson of Sir Robert Kotewall, who was a member of the Court and Council of HKU and who was conferred an honorary doctorate by the University in 1926, and the son of Mrs Doris Zimmern, Dr Zimmern continues a familial legacy of community service and philanthropy. Allow me to present you with two examples of this.
Through the Doris Zimmern Charitable Foundation, which was founded in 1992 by his mother to serve the people of Hong Kong, Dr Zimmern established the Doris Zimmern Professorship in Community Child Health at HKU in 2009.
His motivation for this? Dr Zimmern said at the time (and I quote):
“Children always arouse the attention of charitable donors. Much is given either to support diseases that give rise to a great deal of emotion such as cancer, or to charities that support underprivileged children. There are many examples of such in Hong Kong. However, the medical and social care of children in the community, and the establishment of strategic programmes to improve child health, is a relatively neglected area.”
His hope was that the establishment of an academic unit would inject some academic vigour into this relatively neglected field, and encourage greater interest in this area from colleagues within the Department of Health and the Hospital Authority.
Dr Zimmern can justly speak with authority about this. He was Director of Public Health for Cambridge and Huntingdon Health Authority from 1991 to 1998. He is also an Associate Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Consultant in Public Health Medicine at Addenbrooke's Hospital.
He has an Honorary Professorship in Public Health at HKU and also advises the Hong Kong Hospital Authority in matters relating to genetics and genomics.
Indeed, Dr Zimmern is known internationally as a founder of the field of public health genomics.
He has served over the last decade on many national committees concerned with genomics. These have included the Genetics Commissioning Advisory Group, the Steering Group for the UK Genetic Testing Network, the Joint Genetics Committee of the Royal Colleges, the Council of the British Society of Human Genetics and the Diagnostics and Screening Panel of the UK Health Technology Assessment Programme, which he chaired.
So, it was pleasing to learn that Dr Zimmern praised HKU in 2007 for including Public Health as one of its eight strategic research areas.
The Sir Robert Kotewall Professorship in Public Health was established that year to establish greater understanding of the genetic and molecular determinants of health and disease and their interaction with environmental factors.
As I said earlier, these are just two examples that highlight Dr Zimmern’s lifelong commitment to advancing public health, but at today’s ceremony, they are also examples of his intergenerational bond with the University and his ongoing belief in our endeavours.
It gives me great pleasure, Mr Pro-Chancellor, to present Dr Ronald Leslie Zimmern for the Honorary University Fellowship, in recognition of his contributions to Hong Kong and academia.